Cardinal Brady was silent about child abuse. Now, he should be silenced

Cardinal Brady was silent about child abuse. Now, he should be silenced

THE Catholic Church is unlikely to employ me as a communications advisor, so this pithy pearl of wisdom is on the house — step away from the microphones, Cardinal Sean Brady.

Last making headlines when it was revealed that he had sworn two victims of the serial paedophile, Brendan Smyth, to secrecy during a Church investigation, the Cardinal has been in the news in recent days fronting the Church’s campaign against abortion legislation.

Apparently, Cardinal Brady has reinvented himself as a child advocate. There’s just one caveat. The children have to be unborn before Cardinal Brady will speak on their behalf. Engaged in a media blitz since the heads of the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill were published, Cardinal Brady said politicians have an “obligation” and “solemn duty” to oppose the “menacing” legislation.

Victims of Smyth (who was one of the biggest menaces to children in this country), were presumably dumbfounded by Cardinal Brady’s damascene conversion.

While the Cardinal is now demanding politicians defend the rights of children, he was found seriously lacking when he was part of a Church inquiry into Smyth in 1975. Brady was then a 36-year-old canonical lawyer and professor, and he has since described his role as a lowly notary who took notes while two teenage boys recounted their horrific abuse by Smyth.

One of the teenagers, Brendan Boland, had been abused for two years. He told the inquiry about the other young victim, who was then interviewed alone. His parents were never informed.

From source article in the Examiner…..”The Archbishop of San Salvador, José Luis Escobar, said a termination of the pregnancy would be “inhuman, against nature and against all principles.”

So they keep telling us. The embryo/foetus is another human being, life begins at conception, abortion is murder etc. The trouble is that we only have their word for it.

When does a foetus become a person then, if not at the moment of conception? Is it necessary to be able to pinpoint the time? They say that ensoulment occurs at conception, but they have no scriptural grounds for saying this, or grounds based on doctrinal history (important for Catholics), as up until the end of the eighteenth century they believed in the homunculus, a little person being ejaculated by the man into the woman. None of this matters to rational people, as we don’t believe in the soul.

So when does a foetus become a person? Is it necessary to say? We have binary minds, and a binary legal system, either it is or it is not – but the world is not a binary place.

Most people realise that it is not always possible to say exactly when someone dies, though doctors do it all the time, but hearts can be restarted, brain scans can show lack of activity in people who subsequently recover, bodies can be kept alive for years when there is no sign of brain activity (vide http://interactive.snm.org/docs/pg_ch20_0403.pdf, or Wikipedia, Brain Death). For clinical and legal reasons they have to have a definition and procedure to say when life ends, but they still argue about it.

The same is true of the beginning of human life. Ova and sperm are certainly alive, and they are also human, but we don’t consider them to be human beings. Little changes when they fuse. There is no heart beat, and no cerebral activity. So at what point do they become human beings? Why should it be necessary to establish this – it is a matter of definition and occult belief, which tell us little or nothing about reality.

The church is currently threatening to excommunicate members of the government who vote for the legislation. i mean they’re all demons anyway but yes the noise they’re making is entirely the opposite of their approach to children already trapped in this vale of tears. Brady is one supreme hypocrite and that’s before you get to his perecution of rape victims to protect his club.

Brady made at least of one of those boys swear on the bible never to utter a word of his abuse to anyone, or in other words helped conceal a horrible crime, Brady belongs in prison along with Smyth. He has no place telling anyone how they should vote.

I don’t think there’s any “reinvention” on Cardinal Brady’s part, nor has he undergone a “damascene conversion”. As a born and bred Irish Catholic, his opposition to abortion is likely to have been life-long. Its not as though its the Church has recently introduced a new policy, there are numerous 1st and 2nd century texts that condemn abortion and infanticide (both common in the Roman empire). Even if by today’s standards Brady was wrong in his action (or inaction) 40 years ago (and people in many walks of life have learnt a lot of lessons over that time) that does not prevent him from stating the teaching of the Church, which after all is his job as its leading spokesman in the country. The rightness or wrongness of abortion does not depend on his or anyone else’s personal opinion, but on whether an unborn foetus is or is not a human person (assuming we all agree its wrong to kill a human person.)
Oh, and the author is also wrong in saying that the Church prevents medics from ending ectopic pregnancies. According to the principle of double effect it is morally permitted to remove the section of Fallopian tube even though it will lead to the death of the foetus.

Nevertheless the “rightness” of abortion is something that can be determined in a democracy by the will of the people, not by the Bishop of Rome.

Ireland is the most illiberal country in Europe on this topic, possibly jointly with Poland. But as there is no border control between Britain and Ireland, or passport requirement, they have never needed to solve the problem with vaguely enlightened legislation of their own.

Britain largely forbids late term abortions but permits them up to 24 weeks gestation where it is beneficial to the mother’s health (including her mental wellbeing). We are less liberal than America. Our Parliament last debated abortion in 2008 and resolved not to change the existing law, a position endorsed by every single medical professional body. Polls suggest only 19% of Britons believe the law should be tightened.

Abortion is a matter for medical professionals and for elected legislatures. It has nothing to do with what any organised religion may or may not think about it.

Oh, and the author is also wrong in saying that the Church prevents medics from ending ectopic pregnancies. According to the principle of double effect it is morally permitted to remove the section of Fallopian tube even though it will lead to the death of the foetus.

So what is happening in San Salvador then? Has Jesus forsaken that poor woman then ? And as to the woman who died in Ireland together with her phoetus, because she could not get an abortion. Please don’t pretend that that the RCC is in any way honest, benign, or has any respect for its adherents. Brady was just doing his job failed miserably at Nuremberg.

Oh, and incidentally, generally, I’m opposed to abortion. There is indeed a whole ethical debate to be had about abortion, but what Jesus has to say about it it is of no consequence.

But occasionally, abortion is the right course of action, and bollocks to the RCC and their hiding of all that sperm ejaculated over alter boys !

Brady has no moral leg to stand on, considering that some 70% of abortions are carried quite naturally by God Himself ! OK, call it miscarriage, but death by Jesus nonetheless !

This whole abortion argument is stupid. They don’t care about the unborn chldren. What they care about is punishing a woman for spreading her legs and getting pregnant. You do the “crime” you do the time — end of story.

They truly don’t care about anything else. Why else would they care if their precious jesus was born of a virgin. Can’t have a woman sullied by sexual activity, now can we???

Dirty whores got themselves pregnant. There should not be an easy solution out of it.

This whole abortion argument is stupid. They don’t care about the unborn chldren. What they care about is punishing a woman for spreading her legs and getting pregnant. You do the “crime” you do the time — end of story.

They truly don’t care about anything else. Why else would they care if their p…

RCC obsession with abortion is that they don’t want anything that limits the breeding of tithing sheep. Same reason for their attempts to sabotage contraception at every turn. All Catholics are also culpable because they enable the existence of this worldwide delusion peddling crime network.